Chapter 1

It was getting near sundown, and the goats were being stubborn as Link and Malon were trying to drive them back towards the barn for the night. It wouldn't have been such a big deal to leave them out just a few weeks ago, but it was turning cold at night now and he didn't like them to be left out in the cold. He pulled his octorok leather, fur lined gloves a little tighter over his hands and shivered. He didn't like being left out in the cold either. It made his joints ache just enough to where it became annoying.

"I'm getting a little too old for this," he said, patting the side of the mare's neck. Malon was getting to be somewhere near twenty years old herself. "Now that I think about it, you're getting a little old for this too, aren't you girl?" The red and white mare snorted her reply. She didn't like it when he talked about her age.

He took his green cap off and ran his gloved hand through his graying dark blond hair before replacing it. He hadn't gone completely gray yet, though the goddesses only knew why. At sixty two years old, he was certainly old enough. He couldn't remember if he had ever gone completely gray before. It had been thousands of years since he had lived long enough to reach sixty two.

"One of these days, girl, we're going to have to let Daphnes or Gaepora take this over." Link told her, thinking of his grown sons as his back ached mildly. He then looked at the last of the remaining goats. "Just not today." He amended his statement, and spurred her on again. They trotted fast, flanking the recalcitrant goats on one side and then the other until they were all running in the direction the old goat rancher wanted them to go.

Of course neither Daphnes nor Gaepora had wanted the quiet ranch life of Ordonville in the first place, and had gone to join his majesty's service in the R.H.M.G. each when they reached seventeen years of age. Because of their excellent service, and their family background and connections, they each now held important positions within the Guard's hierarchy answerable to the aging king himself. Link chuckled at the irony as he always joked with them that they wound up working in the family business for their brother anyway. It was a joke they never seemed to find funny.

Their sister Malona however, now she was a farm girl through and through. He wouldn't have minded getting her out there except she had her own property and livestock to worry about up the road from her parents. He didn't want her or her own boys thinking that their granddad couldn't do a little thing like manage a few goats anymore.

After a few more passes he and his mount had sufficiently frightened the goats enough to make them all run for the safety and warmth of their barn and he pulled Malon back and trotted over to the old wooden barn door. He dismounted as softly as he could, and went over to the door, shutting it and locking it for the night. It had been years since they had been given any trouble by the wild trolls that used to wander through that part of Ordon, but old habits died hard. He took a glance at the loaded revolver rifle which sat securely in its saddle holster. Yeah, they died real hard.

He looked off to the west and watched the sun begin to touch the forested horizon beyond the pasture and fields of his property. He loved that view. There would be times that he and Zelda had come out to herd the goats back into the barn with him just so they could watch the sunset from horseback together. But it was getting a little too cold in the evenings for her too lately.

"C'mon girl. Let's put you to bed for the night too." He said, taking her reins in one hand and leading her around to the horse barn a little distance away from the goats. He put up the separate barn for the horses decades ago because he didn't like the idea of Epona, his old mare who had been one of his best friends since he had been a kid, having to share space with animals that were going to be on someone's dinner table sooner or later. She deserved more dignity than that, and so had Zelda's mount.

He led her into the warmer barn and into her own stall, taking her saddle off of her, and rubbing her down really good. "There you go girl." He said, patting her side. "What do you think, an extra blanket for the night?" He asked her. She nodded her head and pawed the ground with her front hooves.

"Yeah, I agree. I'd want one too if I was out here. Sorry I didn't make the house more horse friendly." He apologized to her with a chuckle. He then went and retrieved a blanket for her and placed it over her back, straightening it out. "There you go. Sweet dreams, Malon." He said with just a hint of sadness at a very old memory.

He left the stall and closed it up for her for the night. In the stall next to her, Zelda's white gelding, Big Man, snorted in complaint.

"Hey, don't complain to me, boy." Link responded, going over to him and patting him on the nose. "It's cold outside and you know she doesn't do well with the cold anymore. Neither of us are as young as we used to be." He then added, "I'll let her know how you feel about it, though, okay?"

He left the two horse for the night and exited the horse barn heading for the main house on the property. As he walked by, an Ordonian man in a black suit came around the barn and smiled at him, "Everything go okay on your ride tonight, sir?" He asked Link.

"Yeah, everything went fine, Hal." He told him. Hal was a good man who had been a part of his and Zelda's security detail for years. He was in his forties, just about Daphnes' age, and was so good at his job he could have been on Talon's detail but instead he got stuck out in the boonies with two old ranchers and a bunch of goats. "You warm enough tonight? The weatherman said it was going to get close to freezing."

"I'll be fine, sir. I've got my thermals on." Hal responded with another smile.

"Well, go back to your station house and grab a warmer jacket if you need it. We'll probably survive the five minutes it would take for you to run back and grab it." Link told him.

"I will if I need to." Hal conceded with a laugh.

"Do all of the other boys have their thermals on?" Link asked. It was going to get cold. He didn't want those charged with his and his wife's security getting sick or hypothermic.

"Yeah. We all saw the weather report too, sir. Don't worry about us. You and the princess have a good night." Hal responded again.

The "princess." It had been so long since she had lived that life that it caused him to pause whenever he heard her called that, but their security detachment never allowed them to forget who they both had been decades ago. "You know she hates it when you call her that." Link told him. "She hasn't worn a tiara in decades.

"My bad, sir." Hal responded as he always did.

"Just don't let her catch you saying it, or you'll be the one who catches it from her, not me." Link told him.

"I'll try and remember that, sir." Hal said.

"Have a good evening, Hal." Link finally said with a sigh, his breath becoming visible in the chilling air.

"You too, sir." Hal said, and then he moved off as Link went to the old wooden steps of the side door of the house.

He went up the short steps, opened the door and found himself in the kitchen where a mature, blond, handsome woman with hardly any wrinkles except her wonderful laugh lines was finishing up preparing their supper. He just stopped at the door and stared at her, a half grin creeping over his face as she turned to look at him with that smile he still found the prettiest sight he had ever or would ever see.

After more than four decades of marriage and three kids she still hadn't lost her slender figure or girlish poise. The expensive designer clothes were gone and replaced with denim pants and flannel shirts which she took to wearing around the house when they had no reason to leave their ranch to go into town. She rarely wore any kind of make-up. He never thought she needed it anyway. Her platinum blond hair, pulled back in a functional ponytail, was streaked with lines of silver that blended perfectly with the gold like a kind of fine jewelry piece. From the tips of her toes peaking out of their leather sandals to the points of her perfect Hylian ears, she was just as beautiful to him in that moment at sixty two years old as the day he had first laid eyes on her at seventeen, or the hundreds of times before that.

"And what are you looking at, sir?" Zelda asked him playfully.

"This young blond beauty that somehow found her way into my kitchen." Link responded.

"I'm sorry, whose kitchen is this?" She asked, feigning mock offense as she approached him and put her arms around his neck. He took his gloves off and put his own arms around her slender waist.

"Well, I did rebuild it." Link returned.

"Mmm-hm. We rebuilt it." She said, emphasizing the word "we." "I did just as much work on it as you did, and you know it, mister." She said, kissing him gently.

"I'm sorry. You're right. We rebuilt it." He conceded in defeat. "So I guess that makes it our kitchen." He then taunted.

"Oh, it's our kitchen is it?" She needled. "Well, then you won't mind making breakfast, lunch, and supper tomorrow, will you." A cunning grin spread over her face.

"Sure!" He said happily. "We can throw that octorok I shot yesterday on the barbecue!"

She pushed him away and slapped his chest playfully. "Oh, that's disgusting Link!" She told him. The large eight legged land mollusk carcass in question was still out in the north part of the property and had already begun to smell. He didn't worry about it attracting other predators as a decomposing octorok carcass put off such a stink that it actually kept other octoroks away from his herd for a good long time. They didn't like the scent of the death of one of their own. His uncle Russel had taught him that years and years ago.

"So, it's a little gamey. So what?" He continued.

"Oh, stop! That's gross, you're going to make me vomit!" She protested. "Go clean yourself up for supper, mister." She told him.

"Yes, ma'am." Link responded happily. Zelda would never let him anywhere near her stove or pots and pans and he knew it. That was fine by him. He was a lousy cook and always had been. His best dish had actually been wild octorok cooked on a spit over a campfire one time. He didn't think it was that bad, but it sent the rest of his family running into the bushes at odd hours of the night for the rest of the night. Well, octorok was kind of an acquired taste anyway. That was when the kids were still in school, and long before Daphnes, Gaepora, and Malona had kids of their own.

He took off his fur lined octorok leather jacket, hung it up on the coat rack next to the door, and went into the bathroom off the kitchen. He plugged the sink, turned on the hot water from the faucet and let it fill the basin before he ran some cold water into it. He splashed some water up into his face with his weathered hands, and rubbed it around a bit to wash off whatever dust and sweat might have accumulated there from riding. He then took a bar of soap to finish the grime from the inside of his gloves off his hands. Rinsing them off, he grabbed a towel next to the sink and dried off his hands and face and went to their dining room.

Zelda already had the old table set. It wasn't fancy, just a simple meal of chevon stew and sweet pumpkin bread she had baked earlier in the day. He liked it that way. They could have had a chef from the palace come and stay with them when they first moved out here, but Zelda didn't want that. She wanted to learn how to do it on her own. They had gone through a lot of burned meals and take out from Pumm's Diner in town that first year, but she refused to give up. Forty five years later, he'd take Zelda's cooking over old Pumm's daughter's any day.

The table itself had been brought from the palace from one of the smaller dining rooms, as had other pieces of furniture for the old house. It was an antique made of deku wood from the Kokiri forest and big enough to seat their whole family when they came for the holidays. It looked strangely empty with just the two settings.

"None of the boys outside are going to be eating with us tonight are they?" Zelda called out from the kitchen.

"No, I don't think so, Zelda." Link responded, pulling out his own seat.

"Did you ask any of them?" She asked as she brought a pitcher of juice out to the table.

"No, I'm sorry, I forgot." He said in response.

"Well, I hope they don't get hungry. I only made enough for the two of us really." She said with a tinge of disappointment.

"I'm sure they'll be fine, dear." Link responded with a smile. There was enough food on the table to feed at least four or five people. Whatever they didn't eat he knew would somehow find its way into the refrigerator at the R.F.P. station house nearby. Zelda was always trying to take care of them too.

She sat down and they began to scoop stew into the ceramic bowls. Link took some of the bread and broke off a piece, dipping it in the stew before chewing it. After swallowing it he said, "It's delicious as always, Zelda. Thank you."

She blushed and said, "Oh, it wasn't anything and you know it, old man."

"My taste buds beg to differ, dear." Link replied. She had always been a little insecure about her cooking even after she got good at it.

She smiled. "Did the goats give you much problem getting them back in tonight?" She asked as she took a bite of her own food.

"They were a little stubborn, but Malon and I got them where they needed to go." He replied. "It was a gorgeous sunset, dear. You would have loved it."

"Oh?" She asked.

"Oh, and Big Man sends his regards." Link added.

"That poor thing, I'll have to get outside tomorrow and take him out." She said. Of course, Link knew she'd said that now every evening for the past couple of weeks.

Link concentrated on his supper, eating the salty, spicy stew thoughtfully. He then asked, "Is everything okay, Zelda?"

"Of course it is." She responded quickly. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"You just haven't been yourself lately. You haven't ridden Big Man for a couple of weeks now, and that just isn't like you." Link pointed out.

"Well, it's been getting colder Link, you know that. I don't like it when it's cold." She responded defensively. "And I've been getting more tired lately, that's all."

"The cold never used to bother you before." Link responded.

"Maybe my age is finally catching up to me." Zelda responded. "After all, we're both in our sixties now. We couldn't stay young and healthy forever, could we?"

"But you were just fine before two weeks ago." Link persisted. "Have you talked to the healer lately?"

"I haven't seen Kelli since my check up last month, you know that. My next one's not for another week." Zelda protested. "I'm fine, Link. I've just been a little tired lately, that's all."

"I want you to call her tomorrow, Zelda. It won't hurt for her to make the house call a week early. Have her run one of those new hand scanner devices over you like she did a couple of months ago. Please, just do it for my peace of mind if nothing else, would you dear?" He asked, trying to maintain a charming smile.

"Oh, alright, I'll call her first thing in the morning. I just don't want her rushing all the way out here for nothing. Sometimes I wish we could just go and see the healers in town instead of having poor Kelli come all the way from Castleton." Zelda told him.

"It's for the best." Link responded. They both knew perfectly well why they couldn't just go and see the healers in town, Talon's explicit instructions for their care to Royal Family Security notwithstanding. In forty five years little had changed to R.F.S.'s standing orders where Link and Zelda were concerned, and those were from the king himself.

Zelda began using her own small pieces of bread she cut from the loaf to sop up what remained of the stew and began to chew. The look on her face told Link there was more going on behind her eyes than she was letting on.

"What else is on your mind?" He asked.

"Have you heard from your mother lately, Link?" Zelda asked.

The question took him by surprise, and he almost began to wonder if her mind was going. Link's mother had been dead since he was very young. He almost began to mention this when she added, "Farore, I mean."

Oh, that mother. "No, I haven't heard from her in a long, long time." He answered. "Have you heard from Nayru?"

"No." She responded sadly.

"You know they don't usually involve themselves in mortal matters, Zelda. I hadn't really expected to hear from them again in this life." He told her.

"I hadn't either, it's just that... well... Oh, never mind." She said and then focused again more intently on her food. Link could see she was frustrated about something.

"What is it?" He asked.

"We're getting older, Link. Neither of us knows how much longer we've got in these mortal bodies. The last time I talked to my mother she said that there was no guarantee either of us would be able to ascend again." She stopped for a minute, and then continued, "That was my fault, I know. But I just... I mean we've kept out of interfering with anything that goes on outside of this property for most of our lives now. I guess I would have thought maybe they would have at least let us know whether or not we would continue after this or not."

Link hadn't actually thought about that for a long, long time. He had been happy right where they were, doing what they were doing. He hadn't been in any hurry to return to the realm of Hyrule's "gods" and all that it had meant for him in his long and considerable life.

"I guess they'll let us know when they've made up their minds. To honest, dear, I haven't thought about it for years." Link said. "I figured someone would show up when we were dying and lead us back. If nothing else, we both did it once before on our own. We can do it again. Maybe they expect us to."

She listened to what he said, but then didn't reply for some time. When she did, she said quietly, "I don't remember how to ascend on my own." She then asked, "Do you?"

Link was taken aback by the question as his mind immediately brought up everything he knew about returning to the other plane of existence he had grounded himself in for so long. His memories of being ascended were a bit fuzzy but they were there. As he thought about the process of how to get there however, he realized that his own memory of it was blank as well.

"No, I guess I don't either." He said after a few minutes. "Maybe they took those memories from us when they exiled us here as mortal."

"Doesn't that worry you?" Zelda asked. "What if this life is all we have left?"

"I don't know." He responded. Oddly enough, it was something he rarely had to contemplate before. "Maybe I should make a trip to Farore's temple and ask her."

"At your age?" Zelda asked incredulously. "You can't just go swinging from a clawshot anymore, Link."

They both laughed out loud at the image of the old man flying through the air at the end of long metal chains. It felt good to laugh, and it took the serious tension out of the air. "No, maybe not." He agreed when his own laughter had calmed down a bit. "But still. Maybe I should find some way of trying to get her to answer the question."

"It's not like they don't know what's going on with us." She pointed out.

"No, that's true. But we don't know what's going on with them." Link replied. In truth, he hadn't much worried about what was going on with them up til this point. He occasionally gave a word of thanks to one of the three goddesses when something went right, but that was about as far as his own religious devotion went since having been one of the objects of such devotion himself at one time long ago. On the rare occasion when he went into town, he still received strange, almost worshipful looks from some of the older folks in town. It was the reason he didn't like going into town much.

"Maybe they're waiting for us to make the effort to seek ascension again." Zelda speculated. "We haven't spent a lot of time working on it, have we?"

"No." He agreed. "No we haven't. We've been too busy living in this life."

Link finished his own food before Zelda, and picked up his bowl, plate, and silverware to take it to the sink in the kitchen, his mind filled with questions about their conversation as he absentmindedly washed his dishes and stuck them in the rack to dry.

It was a good life they had been living. It was a peaceful life that didn't involve more monsters than the occasional wild troll or octorok that had a taste for goat or cucco. But it was a life that would eventually end, and he had gotten so absorbed in it that he had forgotten to consider that fact.

He put his wet hands on the counter and stared out the kitchen window to the trees and pasture beyond. "So, mother, what do I do about it this time?" He asked quietly, but out loud. "How do I fight this enemy of our souls' oblivion?" I must be getting old if I'm waxing poetic, he thought.

He turned away from the window and went to join Zelda again back in the dining room. Outside, just beyond the house and unnoticed by Link, a gentle warm breeze blew through the trees that were turning from green to gold and red in the onset of autumn. If someone had been paying attention, they might have seen the soft, greenish glow of a woman's outline moving through the woods, watching the house expectantly.